NFL PLAYOFFS : AFC Semifinals : Browns Favored--Colts Concur

Here in the tundra, things are hopping.

Just Friday, Northeast Ohio celebrated “Brown and Orange Day,” which is either a heartfelt salute to the Cleveland Browns, who will play the Indianapolis Colts in today’s AFC divisional game at frozen Cleveland Stadium, or a description of nearby Lake Erie.

And waiting for everyone in the morning newspaper was a Brown cutout mask, featuring some mutant breed of Dawg--eyes blue, sharks’ teeth bared--wearing a football helmet. If it were real, dad would have called the sheriff by now.

Playoff fever has hit, all right, like some unchecked flu strain.

Flip on the radio and hear The Bleacher Bums sing, “Bernie, Bernie,” a tribute to Brown quarterback Bernie Kosar.

Wide receiver Webster Slaughter has a daily column called, “Web-Star On The Playoffs.” Web-Star, who has been in the league all of two seasons, discussed cleats the other day.

But no one seems to mind. Brown Coach Marty Schottenheimer could spend 30 minutes discussing zone blocks and Cleveland would listen attentively. Such is the spell.

Cleveland wants retribution. It wants to purge from its memory that 98-yard, last-minute drive by John Elway and the Denver Broncos that deprived the Browns of a visit to the Super Bowl last January.

And it would like nothing better than to beat the Colts, the same team that scored a 9-7 victory here on Dec. 6 to deny the Browns the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

That’s where the fun comes in. The Browns are trying to pretend a playoff game is a playoff game. The Colts? Merely the first opponent.

“There’s no interest in revenge,” Schottenheimer said during the Browns’ recent stay at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla. “The fact that it’s a team we’ve played before and lost to--I don’t think that’s significant. I think they played very well against us. We also hurt ourselves on a number of different occasions. But that was then, and this is about to be now.”

But words occasionally slip out, such as these from Slaughter: “I don’t really care who we play, but I’d like the chance to beat the Colts because they beat us; to beat Denver because of what happened last year and to play the 49ers because we didn’t play to our capabilities when they beat us this year.”

Meanwhile, the Colts are doing what they can to play the part of the grateful playoff entrant. They were 3-13 in 1986. Now they have a 9-6 record, an AFC East title, the newly selected UPI coach of the year in Ron Meyer, and a gift from the Rams, running back Eric Dickerson and his 1,000 or so yards. And yet, Meyer talks as if the Colts were still back at division’s bottom.

“There’s no question, in my opinion, and I’m sure it’s the consensus, the Browns are the superior football team,” he said in a conference call earlier this week. “That doesn’t mean to say we’re going to concede anything. But when you look at their extreme balance . . . when you look at their tremendous production, particularly in the last three years, it’s certainly a franchise on the move and one to be admired. They’re probably the best, most-balanced team in the AFC right now.”

Compare-and-contrast time:

The Browns have running backs Kevin Mack, a Pro Bowl selection, and Ernest Byner.

The Colts have Dickerson, again a Pro Bowl choice, and Albert Bentley, who might have been one had Dickerson not angered the Rams and forced a trade.

The Browns have cornerbacks Frank Minniefield and Hanford Dixon, linebacker Clay Matthews and a defense that allowed the second-fewest points of any team in the league.

The Colts have Duane Bickett, the first Colt linebacker since Mike Curtis in 1974 to earn a place on the Pro Bowl. They also have allowed seven or fewer points in three of their last four games. This helps explain why they led the league in fewest points allowed.

But the Colts don’t have a Kosar, the cerebral one who completes 62% of his passes and plays as if he’s been doing this sort of thing for decades. The Colts don’t even have a Gary Hogeboom, their preferred starter. Jack Trudeau remains the quarterback because of a shoulder injury to Hogeboom.

And the Browns don’t have Dickerson, who gained 1,011 yards in nine games with the Colts and another 277 with his former employers. The Colts are 6-3 since Dickerson started wearing horseshoes on his helmet.

The Browns do have history on their side. Dickerson fumbled three times in last year’s wild-card game against the Washington Redskins. A year earlier, against the Chicago Bears, he fumbled twice. The Rams lost both games.

“I had a bad game last year in the playoffs and everyone made a big thing of it,” Dickerson told Indianapolis reporters earlier this week. “You can’t let them get inside your head.”

AFC Notes

Game day weather update: Brisk and cold, some clouds, snow flurries. High 23, low 12. Both teams are bringing all sorts of playing shoes, including basketball sneakers, to Cleveland Stadium, where the field is frozen solid. And who can forget the minus-25-degree wind-chill factor? “The cold? If I feel cold, I just think about the Super Bowl and then I feel warmer,” Cleveland Coach Marty Schottenheimer told Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bob Kravitz. “I don’t think the weather will have any affect on the game’s outcome, not unless there’s a sudden blizzard in the middle of the game. . . . To prepare themselves for today’s game in the 80,098-seat stadium, the Colts had loud crowd noises played during their practice sessions this week.